Eye See Productions

El Salvador, 1982: 4 Dutch IKON-journalists, Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemse en Hans ter Laag are killed in an embush during the civil war.

It's breaking news. Not only in the Netherlands but also far across her borders. This historical event created a lot of discussion about how to perform journalism in a dictatorship.

Alexandra Indaco, winner of the Dick Scherpenzeel Student Award 2005, travelled back to El Salvador in november 2005 to investigate the present situation and speak with former collegue journalists and other locals, like warphotographer Ivan Montesinos, Human Right Activist Alicia Garcia, and Ex-guerrilla Marco Santiago.

She investigates the way of working and motivation of those times with a central question in mind: is journalism a saint profession?

This report was made for  the Symposium 'Overleven Verplicht', which took place on the 17th of March 2007 at De Balie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The symposium was created to conmemorate our four colleguejournalists Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemse en Hans ter Laag, as it was their 25th anniversary of death.

It was sponsored by: FreeVoice, Amnesty International, ICCO, Kerk in Actie, Dick Scherpenzeel Stichting, Lokaal Mondiaal en Cordaid. The originator was journalist Marc Broere.

El Salvador/NL, 2007, 30', MDV, b/w & colour

Language: spanish and dutch
Subtitled: dutch
Produced by: Lokaal Mondiaal

Directed by: Alexandra Indaco
Cinematography: Carlos Funes
Sound: Carlos Funes
Research: Rob Brouwer, Alexandra Indaco
Scenario: Rob Brouwer, Alexandra Indaco
Editing: Maurits Dekkers
Music: Tee-jay Studio, Thijs de Melker

With special thanks to IKON for contributing with it's archivematerial and all the people in El Salvador who helped to make this report.

 

Click here to see pictures of A Saint Profession.

To view the video click below.